PATENT BACKS HIS BRIGHT IDEA

Jim Howard's law enforcement career has been eclipsed by the sun, so to speak.

The deputy who commanded the Broward Sheriff's Office Crime Stoppers program since its start in 1981 has traded his badge and sergeant stripes for a three- inch-wide piece of plastic and a suction cup.

He is now an inventor. And that piece of plastic is his first creation.

Call it "Umbrashade, the Mobilevisor." The name is a trademark, and the invention is patented, the proud inventor said. Stick its suction cup on a windshield, he said, and no more glare in your eyes when you're driving into the sun.

"People look at it and say, 'Son of a gun, why didn't I think of that?' " said Howard. "It is a useful product."

Howard, 47, should know. He came up with the idea while driving into the sun in his sheriff's car last year.

"I was driving west on State Road 84, right into the sun," he said. "I had my hand up blocking the glare because the car's visor didn't come down far enough.

"I looked into my mirror and saw the guy behind me had his hand up, too. Then there was a guy in a bus next to me doing the same thing. I said, 'Wait a minute. There has to be a better way of doing this.' "

After he got home, the son of a draftsman took out a sketch pad and started "fooling with an idea." Soon he had a rough sketch of what would be the Mobilevisor.

The next day, he bought a women's makeup compact and fashioned a working model out of it. The idea is simple: take a small circular object and blot out the sun's glare with it. He attached it to his windshield and went driving into the sun.

A few weeks after coming up with the idea, Howard was on a plane to Washington with $2,500 to get the idea patented. Somewhere along the way, he also developed one of the symptoms of inventing:

"I was so paranoid," he said. "I didn't want to tell anyone about what I had until I had it protected."

But, after getting the visor patented, Howard told friends about his invention and raised $50,000 from backers. These days, the visors are popping out of the mold four at a time in a warehouse near Dania.

Howard, who was a security investigator, Florida Senate candidate and president of a title insurance company in the years before joining the Sheriff's Office, hopes to market his visor, which costs just a few dollars to produce, to companies that will use them for advertising.

Company names and slogans can be printed on the circular or heart-shaped visors. Later, Howard said, he intends to enter the retail market.

Howard thinks his product can't miss. That led him to devoting full time to the manufacture and marketing of the product, a decision that meant leaving the Sheriff's Office after five years.

Howard, whose previous work involved guns, bulletproof vests and confidential informants, said the choice to leave was tough.

"It wasn't easy. I think about it every day," he said. "But this project was ready to go. I felt like I had to roll with it to see where it would go."

Meanwhile, his serious thought remains focused on marketing his new invention and designing his next one -- the one he won't talk about.

"I got something on the drawing board," he said with a smile. "But I can't say what it is. If you even tell your best buddy what you got, you can lose control of it."